The Steel Fist

by Richard Townsend Bickers

  “Too much of Fred Karno’s Army about this show, Bill.”

  Gowland nodded, looking grim.

  “You know better than me.”

  It was a modest, blunt admission that Gowland had never been in battle. Taggart reflected that that Yorkshire public school hadn’t done much for Gowland’s grammar.

  “And you know better than I about this type of operation: you were at least in an Independent Company, you had some specialised training.”

  “My own commonsense tells me there’s nowt like bullets and shrapnel flying around your ears to educate you in this trade. You’ve been there. I haven’t.”

  Ultimately, Taggart thought, with no reference to this statement, the personality of the commander was impressed on the whole framework within which a unit existed. But who, ultimately, was in command of The Commandos? It was a disquieting thought that he — and his comrades, who should be able to look after themselves as well as he could, so it was their worry, not his — were going into battle with no clear knowledge of who was holding all the strings; to use another metaphor, who was orchestrating it.

  He hoped somebody was; even so, he would like to know him and judge for himself what calibre of man this could be.

  Meanwhile, the only way to treat the operation was as an enjoyable adventure.

  As Bill Gowland had said, Jerry would hardly be expecting such audacity and they would catch him with his pants around his ankles. Would? Well... should.

  * * *

  Three boats were to sail from Dover, two from Folkestone, one from Newhaven.

  Among the force assembling in Dover that afternoon there was unsuppressed excitement. Everyone was high-spirited. The mood shared some of that which had permeated a section detailed to patrol in front of The Maginot Line; but it carried a greater charge of electricity: the sea, even a narrow stretch like the Channel, was an unfamiliar element. The raid was a new type of venture. The men were still mostly strangers to each other. Every officer and man knew that if his performance was poor he would be turned out of the Commandos.

  They embarked before dusk in an atmosphere of high adventure. The A.S.R. launches mounted four Vickers guns in a turret, but were otherwise defenceless. However, they looked lean and fast and when they left port there was a stirring wake from their three powerful engines.

  The last boat had hardly cleared the harbour when the captain, an R.N. lieutenant, received a signal. He handed it to the Colonel without comment. Beauchamp-Ballantrae summoned his officers and men.

  “The H.S.L. from Newhaven and one of the pair from Folkestone can’t sail: engine trouble; so there are only a hundred and twenty of you to carry the can. It means everyone will have to perform at two hundred per cent efficiency.”

  Despite the Colonel’s faulty mathematics, or perhaps because of them, the news infused a fresh manifestation of cheerfulness in the troops. Sticks of black greasepaint were issued, with which they daubed their faces. They spread it until they told one another that they looked like nigger minstrels. Voices could be heard singing “Down Upon The Swanee River”, “Old Black Joe” and “Mammy”.

  Udall, arms spread and kneeling on one knee, gave a hilarious impersonation of a Cockney Al Johnson. Taggart was one of those who applauded him and asked for an encore.

  Hell of a way to go to battle, Taggart told himself. He recalled his literary conversation with the French officer before his second sortie from the Maginot forts. That had been a droll preliminary, too. He hoped that Abberley’s troop of three officers and 27 O.Rs would fare as well as had his section that night. The Colonel would stay on board this boat, Colonel Clarke aboard another.

  The sun was setting when three fighters appeared low over the water, flying directly towards the small flotilla.

  The machine-gunner swung his turret towards them. Others prepared to fire Brens, rifles and Tommy guns. When seen to be Hurricanes, the fighters were greeted with cheers and arm waving.

  The day’s recognition letters were flashed and colours of the day fired from the little bridge. The Hurricanes dived. Silence fell on the black-faced Commandos. The engines of the boats and the fighters roared above the stillness and the hiss of water against the hull, the susurrus of the long, foamy wake.

  The captain ordered “Stop engines” and way fell quickly off the speeding vessel until, from 40 knots, it was motionless and wallowing in the wave-chop.

  The Hurricanes climbed and dived again, twice, then hared off to the south-west.

  The captain called from a window “They’re trying to attract our attention... they think we’re on an A.S.R. patrol... must be a pilot in the drink.”

  He rang “Full speed ahead” and set course in the direction the Hurricanes had indicated.

  Abberley, leaning on a rail between his two subalterns, said “First black mark: there’s been too much secrecy about this operation; not enough liaison between the three Services. Nobody has been warned of our route or time of sailing... or return. Security is all very well, but total secrecy is absurd. Now we’ll waste time and it’ll upset the timetable... and give us less time ashore.”

  “We might save a pilot’s life,” Taggart suggested.

  “Let’s hope we do.”

  It was half an hour before a lookout hailed the bridge, pointing to starboard. A yellow object bobbed on the sea. It looked like a man in a life vest. It turned out to be a buoy. The H.S.L. returned to pick up its original track.

  Abberley was called to the bridge, where he was seen talking to the skipper and the Colonel. He rejoined Taggart and Gowland.

  “The flotilla commander has evidently made nine landings in the target area during the past three weeks, but this messing about looking for a downed pilot has made him lose himself. Apparently the navigation equipment on these boats isn’t as good as in the Navy’s M.T.Bs. The captain of this scow is lost as well. And we’ve lost contact with the third boat. On top of that, not only are we too late to make the R.V. with the Folkestone boat, but we can’t even find the R.V. Which means that there are two boats in company and two singletons wandering around, all rather lost.”

  “They’re not going to call it off, are they?”

  “That’s one thing you can be sure of. Colonel Clarke wouldn’t hear of such a thing; nor would ours.”

  “Nor would Winston,” Gowland said.

  “I wish the old devil were here, to see what a mess his insistence on this show has landed us in,” said Abberley.

  “What are we going to do?” Taggart asked. “Surely a Regular naval officer can navigate this bloody thing?”

  “Actually, there are no navigational aids apart from the compass. And I’m now told that the H.S.Ls’ compasses are notoriously prone to go wonky.”

  “Well, what do we do?”

  “The skipper gropes his way to the target as best he can. The rest of us pray.”

  They groped — and perhaps there were some who prayed — for an hour and a half.

  Taggart was standing in the bows with Gowland and Abberley. His anger was all the more heated because of his earlier reflections about lack of preparation. In his present mood, with belligerence worked up and then suppressed by frustration, he was angry as much at the prospect of no fighting as at the inefficiency.

  Was that the shore line, glimpsed dimly? He shut his eyes for a moment.

  At the instant that he reopened them a long, brilliant beam shone from a searchlight that looked no more than a few hundred yards away. The beam swung, sending bright glints scattering on the wavetops. A few seconds later a second beam leaped from the shore and began to sweep towards the first one.

  The deck heeled, sending Taggart staggering. He heard men falling and swearing. He felt the bows swing away as the craft turned through ninety degrees.

  Tracer coruscated astern and ahead, and overhead. The ripple of machine-gun fire and the rapid thud of 30 millimetre cannon followed the bullets and shells that sizzled past.

  Abberley came tottering back from the bridge
, his feet unsteady on the sharply angled deck, with the three engines full out at 45 knots, the bow rearing high, the stern dug low into its wash.

  “We were almost in the entrance to Boulogne harbour. At least we know exactly where we are, now.”

  “There are pleasanter ways of finding out.” Taggart was peering astern, his back to the bow rail. “I suppose the whole coast will be alerted now.”

  “Who wants a cushy operation? We’ll learn more from a hard one. Look on the bright side, my dear chap.”

  Taggart, having known his troop commander for two or three weeks, could visualise the ironically unconcerned look on Abberley’s face.

  He felt ashamed that his own self-possession had proved so flimsy an integument that the setbacks of the last few hours — two unserviceable boats, the Hurricanes’ ignorance of the Commandos’ mission, the search for a man who wasn’t there, the boats’ separation, the failure of navigation — had punctured it sufficiently to penetrate his even temper; again.

  Abberley, he supposed, was about thirty and had lost his youthful hot-bloodedness; if anyone as cool as he had ever suffered from that. But Gowland was only 24, and he was taking things as they came, too. Well, damn it, West Riding men are the most legmatic people in the whole of England. No excuse. What’s the matter with me? He stood back and considered himself. He decided that he was just spoiling for a fight; all the more because of the early upsets.

  He had been unaware of Udall’s presence. Udall had been watching him in the backwash of the searchlight beams, their reflections off the water, and the faint starlight.

  Blimey, he’s off again. Cuddling that bleedin’ Tommy gun as if it was a bit of stuff in the back row of the pitchas. “Think we’ll get ashore, sir?”

  Daft bloody question. He don’t know any more than what we do. Jerk him out of his mood, though.

  Taggart breathed deeply, steadying himself; grateful to Udall although he did not know that Udall’s intrusion had been deliberate.

  Udall saw him grin.

  “You and I will, Udall. I don’t know about the others. You told me you could swim fifteen lengths of Camberwell Baths. Now’s the chance to prove it.”

  “Won’t be too windy to put us ashore, will they, sir, the Navy?”

  “I expect they’ll do the decent thing.”

  Udall relaxed, smiling.

  The firing lasted only a couple of minutes. The searchlights, joined by two more, kept sweeping for ten. The H.S.L’s captain had had the presence of mind to turn away from the direction of Le Touquet and then to head out to sea. If any listening devices were following them he hoped he had fooled them. He resumed what he now knew to be the right heading for his target.

  Now there was tension among the raiding party; but it was tempered by a return of the good spirits with which they had sailed.

  The boat was down to half speed to avoid detection by sound or too phosphorescent a wake. A new noise obtruded. After his months in France and days at Dunkirk Taggart recognised at once the beat of a Me 110’s two engines. There was a sliver of moon by now and he, with others, saw the aircraft scud over the silvery sand dunes 1000 yards to port. It was following the coastline away from them. It turned suddenly and began to fly in their direction.

  It was still too far away to spot a slowly moving boat, when there was a flurry of star shells and flares to the south and it about turned once more and disappeared.

  The H.S.L. nosed its way cautiously towards the beach.

  A line of small lights suddenly lit the water, seeming to extend at right angles to the beach, towards the H.S.L.

  There was a loud blast of aircraft engines, a beam of light played on the sea and began to move with increasing speed. A rush of air followed in the wake of a seaplane taking off. Its slipstream knocked over some of the men on the launch. For a moment the bow light in the aircraft fell on the H.S.L., but the seaplane’s crew had been too occupied to spot it.

  Taggart held tightly to the rail as the boat rocked in the backwash of the seaplane’s airscrews.

  “I must say that’s a bit much: to be written off in a collision with an aeroplane...”

  “Nothing more can go wrong.” Gowland’s flat voice sounded cheerful. “Our luck will turn now, you’ll see.”

  The H.S.L’s bows nudged the shelving beach and it was time to slide down into the cool water and wade ashore, holding their rifles, Brens and Tommy guns overhead.

  “You all right, Udall?”

  Gasps. “Yessir... on tiptoe...” Gurgles. Udall’s head had dipped beneath the sea as he trod in a pothole. He resurfaced.

  “Don’t wash all the greasepaint off!”

  “No, sir.”

  Taggart heard Udall chortle. He felt a fresh surge of pleasure at being here. He could see Abberley’s tall figure striding through the shallow water ahead, and ran to catch him up. Gowland plodded at his side.

  The party split into three: Abberley with ten men, Taggart with nine and Garland with eight. Taggart picked out landmarks from the photographs he had studied.

  There were no houses for a quarter of a mile on either hand. Beyond, there were clusters of holiday villas, bathing huts, small shops. There would be no one on holiday, the shops would be closed.

  They had no specific target. The two other boats from Dover and the one from Folkestone had been detailed to go to the Berck region to try to destroy aircraft there. Abberley’s party had landed with the objective of finding out how alert the enemy was, of learning something about the defences, and killing a few Germans to terrorise the whole enemy defence system.

  The three patrols went in different directions. Taggart led his across the tussocky sand dunes at a trot. His innate competitiveness demanded that he must penetrate deeper than the others, cover more ground, do a better job. Hence the double march, the staying near the shore, where lookouts could be expected.

  He swung away from the shore, thinking to surprise any defenders from the rear. Three hundred yards from the beach, he turned parallel with it again.

  After 15 minutes he called a halt. They had 95 minutes altogether; 80 only were left. He must allow a longer time for returning than for setting out: they would all be tired, there may be wounded men to carry, and they should have a prisoner to drag along.

  Listening, he could hear the sea washing on the sand and rocks. Then he heard the faint whisper of tyres on a tarmac surface, the rattle of chains, the murmur of voices.

  Lying on the ground, he could discern four Germans on bicycles approaching on the road fifty yards to the right. The sounds carried well in the night.

  Too insignificant a target? If they took these four on, they would betray their presence. If he waited, they might fare better.

  Instinct told him to attack. The lesson he had learned in France advised him to wait.

  He beckoned the men closer and whispered.

  “We could kill ‘em all, save one and take him prisoner. But that would set off the alarm. Not fair to the other two patrols. We’ll wait for something bigger.”

  The cyclists passed. Taggart rose and continued his way.

  Half a mile behind him he heard shots. Turning, he saw a flare burst, followed by the flash of exploding grenades. He heard the cyclists’ voices raised. Then whistles were blown and from the opposite direction came the sound of motor cycles being started.

  The patrol fell prone.

  A motor cycle combination with a machine-gun mounted on the sidecar came by, followed quickly by four more. Then a lorryload of infantry.

  The sounds of a fight where the first shots had come from became louder and more plentiful. Flares kept lighting the sky and tracer bullets cut sparkling paths across the black background.

  Taggart took a decision.

  “I’m going to draw some of them off. I’ll send up a flare here, to attract attention. Jerry will send out motor cyclists to see what’s up. We’ll take them. Kill all the buggers but one lucky chap whom we want as prisoner. Ride their bikes back as far as we
can, and then run for the boat.”

  He positioned the Bren gun at the end of the ambush, in the direction away from which he expected the enemy to come.

  “Don’t ruin their bikes, if you can help it.”

  He fired a white Verey cartridge. It burst and hung in the air, bringing dunes, shrubbery and a few huts and small houses into harsh prominence.

  The flare died. They waited.

  From the unexpected direction came the hammering of motor cycle engines. An enemy flare went up. The masked lights of two more motor cycles were approaching from the opposite direction.

  Taggart was halfway along the ambush position. As the first motorcycle and sidecar came opposite him, he shouted “Fire!”

  The three rifles on his left spat small flames from their muzzles. The machine swerved towards the Commandos. It mounted the verge of the road and hit a sand dune. It overturned and caught fire.

  Two more machines were hard behind it; two others approaching these head-on. All six rifles were shooting. Taggart sprayed bullets with his Tommy gun. Two of the motorcycle combinations collided. The fourth ran off the road on the far side. Spilled petrol was burning on the road. German soldiers were shouting orders or screaming as they burned or lay writhing and wounded.

  The Bren had not fired yet.

  From the direction from which all the enemy had first come, a lorry was being driven fast, its headlights casting narrow beams.

  “Bren gunner... target, lorry.”

  Sparks and flashes from the Bren... tracer leaping down the road... the noise of a skid. A crash as the lorry tipped over. Shouts from men spilling into the road and running towards the Commandos.

  The lurid light of petrol fires lit the scene. All the motor cyclists were dead or wounded. Taggart cut the buttons and badges from a dead man, cut away his identity disc and took his identity papers from a pocket.

  Bullets were humming past too close for delay.

  “Into the dunes!”

  The ambush party crawled to the edge of the lighted area, then rose and pelted back among the hummocks.

  Panting, trembling with exertion, Taggart called the men to close in.